Writer-director Ol Parker (Mamma Mia!
Here We Go Again) chooses yet another stunning locale for his latest movie.
Ol Parkerswears he’s not doing it on purpose.
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The writer ofThe Best Exotic Marigold Hoteland writer-director ofMamma Mia!
It just sort of happened.
“It feels like coincidence,” Parker, 53, tells EW.
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The drone sweeps in, and it all looks majestic.
And part of me was like, ‘Oh, I’ve done this before.'"
“This was more conscious,” he says.
Universal Studios
And I knew that I wasn’t going to writeContagion: The MovieorPandemic: The Movie.
I’m not that guy, and other people would do it much better than me."
“It was an amazing escape for Dan and I to write it,” he continues.
Vince Valitutti/Universal Studios
“Just in our heads, to be somewhere else be somewhere happy and sunny and joyous and free.
It came out of isolation and seclusion and misery and darkness.
But filming in Bali wasn’t possible, between COVID-19 regulations and his stars’ schedules.
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Parker was determined from the earliest days to make this film with Clooney and Roberts or not at all.
“But you never think George and Julia are actually going to say yes.
That’s just a ludicrous pipe dream.
“You listen a lot and take a lot of advice.”
Many of them were first-time actors, populating the film’s world with authentic faces.
“We couldn’t cast the part,” recounts Parker.
And I was talking to Agung, who lives in Queensland, but is fully Balinese.
He was telling me about wedding rituals and wedding ceremonies and customs.
He was like, ‘Which part?
What’s happening here?'”
Still, Parker jokes that he should probably try something different for his next project.
Parker’s next project is set in Alaska, so maybe the cold part is accounted for.
But don’t expect anything less than breathtaking.
Ticket to Paradisehits theaters Oct. 21.
